Foul play in Guinea

  It is reported that, ‘Guinea’s military rulers have dissolved the West African nation’s government, which had been in power since July 2022. The presidency’s spokesman, General Amara Camara, announced the decision on 19 February without providing any specific reasons.

The presidential decree, read by General Camara in a pre-recorded video published on social media, said a new government would be installed but did not specify when that would happen. 

“The government is dissolved... The management of current affairs will be ensured by the directors of cabinet, the secretaries general, and the deputy secretaries general until the establishment of a new government,” he said in the presence of around 20 uniformed soldiers.

Guinea has been under military rule since September 2021, when soldiers overthrew President Alpha Conde, who had ruled for more than a decade. Conde’s election in 2010 marked the country’s first democratic transfer of power since its independence from France in 1958.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has demanded that the coup leaders in Conakry, as well as those in power in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, hold elections within a reasonable timeframe and restore democratic order.

Colonel Mady Doumbouya, the interim president of the former French colony, agreed to return Conakry to civilian rule by the end of 2024 after facing sanctions over an initial three-year transfer of power. The military leadership has claimed that the transition period would allow it to implement major reforms in the poor but mineral-rich country.

In a separate statement posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday, the presidency ordered members of the dissolved government to return state property, including vehicles and travel documents “without delay.”

“The High Commander of the Gendarmerie and the Director General of the Police are responsible for taking all measures to put buffers in all departments until the temporary workers are fully taken over,” announced Ibrahima Sory Bangoura, chief of staff and general of the Armed Forces of the Guinean Transitional Government.

ECOWAS, which has been embroiled in disputes with military rulers in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, has yet to issue an official statement on Guinea’s unexpected government dissolution. The three former French colonies have served notices to withdraw from the bloc, citing harsh sanctions imposed in response to coups in their respective countries. They accuse the 15-nation regional authority of being a tool for foreign powers. The bloc is also dealing with political unrest in Senegal, where a surprise postponement of presidential elections has sparked deadly protests in recent weeks.’

Healthcare in Guinea

The Ebola outbreak, which killed more than 2,500 people in Guinea, revealed how little access to medical care rural Guineans had. The health situation has improved slightly post-Ebola, but without donor money, the system would grind to a halt.

Of every 1,000 babies born in Guinea, 123 die before their fifth birthday. Thousands of babies die from preventable causes each year. For every 100,000 live births, 724 women die.

Guinea has the world’s second-highest rate of female genital mutilation (FGM), after Somalia – 97% of women between 15 and 49 have been cut. Women who have had FGM are twice as likely to haemorrhage during childbirth, and haemorrhage is the leading cause of mothers dying in Africa.

Medicine is in short supply, and health workers’ salaries rely on selling enough of it. This leads to staff shortages; most health centres have one or two health workers when they should have eight.

“The needs are identified, but the money is just not coming from the government,” says Guy Yogo, Unicef’s deputy representative in Guinea. After Ebola, the government increased its contribution to health from 2.66% to 4.66% of GDP, and has committed to 7% for next year. According to Yogo, however: “The minimum is 11-15% if you really want to have an impact.”

There is also an endemic problem with the UN’s approach.

“They give out supplies like sweets,” says Yolande Hyjazi, the country director of Jhpiego, an international health organisation. “The UN system is: what the government asks for, they buy, and that’s it. We’ve seen a lot of vacuum extraction equipment, but if you ask the staff about it they say: ‘I don’t know [what it is], the UNFPA [UN population fund] sent it.’ They give equipment without training.”

Even when staff do know how to use it, obstetric equipment does not solve a problem many women have – getting to a clinic.

Harriet Somadouno, a 20-year-old farmer in her third trimester, walked 17km to Kondiadou for a checkup, carrying 10kg of peanuts on her head to sell at the market en route.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/aug/29/giving-birth-guinea-maternal-health-life-death-lottery-bereft-midwives-medicine

Where did the aid go?

Although Nigeria, Senegal, Mali and the Congo were all affected by the ebola epidemic , the real devastation occurred in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. Medical facilities were overwhelmed at an alarming rate, already-lean government purses were stretched to the limits, the courage of health workers was tested to the brim, and normal life was ruined. In Liberia, the outbreak left half the heads of households out of work, while women - who account for more workers in the non-agricultural, self-employed sectors - were among the hardest-hit. So the aid money started coming in. By July 2015, the United Nations announced that donors had promised $5.2bn, which far outweighed the $3.2bn the three countries said they needed to "return to the progress of their pre-Ebola trauma".

President Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone, speaking on behalf of the three Ebola-hit countries, said: "Humanity sometimes displays short attention spans and wants to move to other issues because the threat from Ebola seems over … The threat is never over until we rebuild the health sector Ebola demolished, until we rebuild the livelihoods it compromised."

The much-vaunted "rebuilding of livelihoods ruined by Ebola" is far from happening. The Liberian government, whose task force destroyed the belongings of Ebola patients, was providing no help as survivors struggled daily for decent food, housing and employment. As Josephine Karwah, one of only three pregnant women to survive the virus, told me, the government left survivors "in a limbo".

Liberia's anti-corruption watchdog audited only a fraction ($15m) of the funding, and found that $800,000, most of which passed through the defence ministry, could not be accounted for. Specific instances of corruption included the disbursement of $600,000 for fuel, feeding, daily subsistence allowance, communication, medical and training, tentage repair, repair and maintenance, without supporting documents; and the payment of $10,000 to 68 officers in 10 counties who could not be physically seen or whose names could not be traced in the daily attendance records.

In neighbouring Sierra Leone the report of the Audit Service of Sierra Leone unearthed a series of financial irregularities, most notably payments to thousands of fictitious health workers, and expenses running into several hundreds of thousands dollars without supporting documentation.

The Ebola Fund Watch report in November 2015 reveals that although Guinea had received donation worth $330m as of November 4, 2015, there is not one audit report on the use of the fund. The "reports of mismanagement" suggested in this report are given credence by the former prime minister Cellou Dalien Diallo's description of Guinea as a country where "contracts aren't signed and investments aren't made".

In all three countries, no individual has been tried, much less convicted, for their role in the mismanagement of money meant to save the lives of the dying.

How the Rich Keep us Poor (video)

Measles Outbreak In Guinea - Socio-Political Instability

Health authorities in Guinea are scrambling to contain a measles outbreak that has killed one child, infected 37 others and spread to half of the country’s 33 districts.

More than 400 suspected cases, nearly all of them in children under 10 years old, have been registered. A vaccination campaign targeting over 1.6 million children is to be launched in the coming weeks.

“We have moved from three affected districts in Conakry before the end of last year to the whole city now being affected. Five more districts out of Conakry are also affected. It means that it could spread throughout the country,” said Felix Ackebo, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) deputy representative for Guinea.

“One of the causes is the nature of the disease. The other is the social/political instability. Many bilateral donors stopped support, awaiting the holding of legislative elections. The whole health system has been weakened. The government was restricted on what it could purchase, and this affected [availability of] vaccines and other important drugs. Many of the basic social services have suffered from this pause in investment,” Ackebo told IRIN. “In the past, we have been obliged to buy measles vaccines and others because the government could not.”

Only 37 percent of Guinean children are fully vaccinated, according to the 2012 Demographic Health Survey. The country’s last measles epidemic, in 2009, infected 4,755 people and killed 10.

Keita Sakoba, head of disease prevention at the Ministry of Health, said that the current stock of measles vaccine, meant for routine immunization, was insufficient for the vaccination drive. He explained that the outbreak was likely due to the accumulation of unvaccinated children.

“We will launch a vaccination campaign in the 15 affected districts and carry out targeted immunizations in districts neighbouring the affected ones,” Sakoba said.


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